Women artists at BAM

Because sexism is still with us, it’s a pleasure to commend the Bellevue Arts Museum on its current lineup, all women, all the time: Sherry Markovitz, Mandy Greer and Anna Skibska. They weren’t chosen because they’re women (thank God), but because their work interests BAM curator Stefano Catalani.

Aside from a substantial problem in delivery, congratulations all around. Markovitz has the third floor to herself, and it has never looked better, but Greer and Skibska are victims of the architecture.

Greer spills out of several small galleries and along a hallway. Her installations need to burrow into a space. At BAM, they look as if they’re waiting for for their space to materialize and in the meantime have taken up temporary quarters. Many of them are familar to Seattle audiences, who’ve seen them under better circumstances: Soil, Bumbershoot, the Seattle Public Library, Priceless Works and, above all, Consolidated Works, where a coat-of-many-colors goat blew fabric flowers out its rear. At BAM, the same goat set at a distance from the flowers makes no sense.

Mandy Greer, “Dare alla Luce,” detail

Greer makes a virtue out of bad sewing. On her own in the world she creates, her incompetence can be riveting. But in the same museum at the same time as Markovitz, the bad-is-good thing doesn’t work. Greer might have had a shred of a chance if BAM had given her a good space, but she can’t compete with Markovitz, who not only has the authority, but also the best place to show it off in. I cannot imagine the curatorial reasoning for pairing them. What, they both use beads?

Anna Skibska, “Left Overs (detail), 2007, glass

Then there’s Skibska, who needs to be a light in the dark. AT BAM, the lighting’s off and the gallery’s crowded. Her work seems labor-intensive and visually starved. Not so at the Museum of Glass, where she was golden.